Marvel’s The Avengers: Infinity War

Image credit: Landmark Media, Capital Pictures

By Tim Fryer

Published Friday, April 20, 2018

It’s the big one! For those who have feasted at the Marvel table for the last decade, a banquet awaits. ‘The Infinity War’ will see the ultimate bad guy, Thanos, up against our mutant superheroes. Getting a hand inside the Infinity Gauntlet could go a long way in determining the outcome.

Thanos is a bad man: a very bad man. Perhaps his most unpleasant trait is that he doesn’t know where to stop. Not happy with ruling his own part of a galaxy he seeks domination over the whole universe and the objects within it that will cement his power, most notably the Infinity Stones.

He does not let sentiment come into the equation. He made it clear he is quite willing to sacrifice his adopted daughters, or at least warm familial relations with them, to satisfy his quest to be the galactic top dog.

The Infinity Stones (Space, Time, Reality, Soul, Mind and Power) are hugely powerful, and if Thanos owned all of them, he would no longer be the man who wants it all; he would be the man who has it all.

At the end of ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’, Thanos decided that he would take his Infinity Gauntlet out of the safe behind the family portrait and use it in his quest to claim these stones. Before the destruction of the Multiverse, Thanos had owned the original Infinity Gems that fit into the gauntlet and which gave him enough power to kill half the population of the universe in a bid to impress Mistress Death.

The original gems were destroyed and recreated as the Infinity Stones that Thanos now has his beady eyes on, as he tackles the Earth’s superhumans in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’.

Image credit: Landmark Media, Capital Pictures

So what is this Infinity Gauntlet and what can it do?

Fundamentally it can do anything the wearer wants it to. The six Infinity Stones individually have complete mastery over their elemental domain. So anyone who controls Space, Time, Reality, Soul, Mind and Power has no limits to what they can do. Indeed the ‘wiping out half the population’ stunt was achieved by literally clicking his fingers. A case of the wrong gauntlet on the wrong hand.

In our series of Big Screen articles, E&T has looked at the technology behind sci-fi films with a view to assess whether it is possible or ever likely to be. Science-fiction does, of course, come in many different forms. The gritty dystopia that was the backdrop for last month’s article about Ready Player One was unlikely, but possible. When it comes to the Marvel movies it moves on to sci-fi fantasy, as anyone who can cause death on the other side of the universe with a simple snap of the fingers will always remain in the realms of fantasy.

Image credit: Landmark Media, Capital Pictures

While we continue to discover the vast power of supernovas and have a longer journey still before we understand the creation, power and movement of black holes, these two phenomena represent the ultimate in known natural forces. The Big Bang was undoubtedly bigger, but it is still just a mathematical model and there are those who maintain that the universe oscillates between states rather than exploding into life 14 billion years ago.

The Infinity Gauntlet can destroy stars, as under Thanos’s stewardship when he thought that might attract a favourable glance from Mistress Death. When you have control over reality and time, not even a black hole stands in your way. For a glove with a few embedded semi-precious stones to have such power seems unlikely. Fantastical even. When Big Screen returns to E&T, expect more gritty dystopia and less supermutants!

Image credit: Landmark Media, Capital Pictures

None of this detracts from the enjoyment of the film. This is meant to be the endgame as far as the Avengers is concerned – everything up to this point should be resolved in ‘Infinity War’. It’s the big one in the Good against Evil showdown. However, ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ concludes in May 2019 with ‘Part 2’. So I am guessing Thanos lives to fight another day.